in favour of an all-out attacking approach and paid dearly for their new look with a shocking 3-2 loss to El Salvador here yesterday.

Striker Oscar Ulloa outpaced Canadian defender Peter Sarantopoulos for a through-ball and lobbed oncoming goalkeeper Paul Dolan in the final minute of play to give the visitors their victory before 6,269 fans.

Ulloa's second goal of the match sent the hundreds of Salvadoreans in the crowd into a frenzy. Waving the blue and white striped flags of their homeland, they were still singing and chanting for their heroes an hour after the match.

"We didn't play poorly -- we just looked a little slack at the back,'' Canadian coach Bob Lenarduzzi said. "We had most of the territorial possession but each time they broke out they posed us problems. The only area we really struggled was in the defensive third of the pitch. We just couldn't stop them from breaking free on the counter-attack.'' Canada began the game as if they were going to run the visitors off the park.

With left-back Mike Sweeney's overlapping play causing havoc, Canada threatened on four occasions before captain Colin Miller swept a Sweeney cross past the outstretched left hand of goalkeeper Raul Garcia after just 13 minutes.

"We thought we'd just go at them from the opening whistle,'' Leonarduzzi said. "Perhaps if we'd scored a second goal when we had all those chances we might have finished them off early on, but we seemed to lose something after our first goal.'' El Salvador appeared to draw level after 26 minutes when Carlos Castro Borja scored from the penalty spot after Dolan had recklessly tackled midfielder Mauricio Cienfuegos. But referee Javier Castellanos of Mexico ordered the kick retaken after Cienfuegos encroached in the penalty box, and Dolan flew to his right to get a hand on the retaken penalty and preserve Canada's lead.

The visitors tied the game after 44 minutes, Guillermo Rivera heading in the rebound after Cienfuegos' header had hit the crossbar.

El Salvador went ahead seven minutes after the restart by catching Canada on a counter-attack. Ulloa slipped between two Canadian defenders to score on a rebound after Dolan stopped Cienfuegos on a breakaway.

Dolan, frequently left to fend for himself, robbed Rivera on a breakaway before Canada broke throiugh for the equaliser in the 71st minute.

Five minutes after seeing his header cleared off the line by defender William Osorio, veteran striker Dale Mitchell arrived at the far post to score following John Catliff's flick-on of Sweeney's near-post corner. The goal was Mitchell's 19th for Canada and his third in this qualifying round.

With the exception of Ulloa shooting wide on another breakaway, Canada dominated the final 19 minutes. They were still pushing forward looking for the winning goal when Ulloa exposed Canada's defensive shortcomings yet again to wrap up the points for El Salvador in the 89th minute.

Canadian striker Paul Peschisolido will miss Sunday's crucial match here against Bermuda after earning his second yellow card of the qualifying round for an over-the-top tackle in the second half. The yellow card was one of six handed out by referee Castellanos, four of them to Canada.